


Goretober

by LadyShockbox



Category: SD Gundam, SD Gundam Force
Genre: Drabbles, Goretober, Goretober 2018, Goretober 2K18, Multi, for Goretober 2018, kawaii robogore, short story collection, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 20,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShockbox/pseuds/LadyShockbox
Summary: Not everything is quite so cute in SD. A collection of thirty-one short stories, under 700 words, from across multiple SD Gundam Force universes. Some are close to home, some are fantastical. Many feature familiar faces, others are new. The cast were never strangers to violence... but sometimes you need a dash of brutality to remember that the spoils of war aren't without consequence. Written for Goretober 2018, wth Nobutatan's prompt list.





	1. Extra Limbs

**. . .**

“She’s disarmed!”

_“Attack!”_

She should have known better, that the Commandos would be too preoccupied to serve a decent defense. A pity, as well as a nuisance.

Lacroa was putting up more of a fight than they anticipated. What should have been a simple invasion against technologically inferior imbeciles turned into one of the toughest fights of her career. The force behind “Mana” was near overwhelming. Even with the magic of their ally Deathscythe, bullets did nothing when magic shields took the blow. Her Horn of War was a misshapen bramble - a  _bush -_ opposed to the menacing tower it was meant to be. The magic from the castle tree was throwing off all her equipment, crippled her beautiful  _Black Musai_.

Doga Grey had shown such promise as a leader in the wake of the invasion coordinators preceding him. Now, in the distance, she would see him engaged with another one of the Royal Knights. Rock, she remembered, but didn’t care much beyond that. He would be in a hyper-acid smelting pit the next time she saw him. She was meant to be overseeing the invasion rather than participate. Grey was a fool leaving her unprotected this way. No matter. When this damn invasion was said and done, if he survived, punishment for his failure would be in the Professor’s—

A sword glanced off her armor, bouncing away uselessly. Urgh. Right. Back to the task at hand, then.

The human king that ruled Lacroa usually had an escort of similar humans that crowded him. Knights of a lesser calibur than their Gundam counterparts, and decorated in the most ridiculous garb this side of the multiverse. The hats! What was the  _issue_ with these humans and their hats? Not even proper helmets on these idiots! These humans were not protecting their master, but had instead fled to the sanctum of the Spirit Tree’s holy site. All to protect some wretched fountain.

Commander Nightingale  _despised_  having rodents this close to her roost.

Unfortunately, the humans were resourceful. Her funnels had been dispatched by two of the Royal Knights, the elite Gundams of their cabal. Nataku and Battol. Bastards. Her additional weapon charges were also drained and both of her arms had their fuel lines cut. So she stood, weaponless, limited mobility in her increasingly paralyzed hands, waiting for the humans to move in for the kill.

A male lifted his sword. He charged headlong, wild victory in his eyes. “Die, foul creature! Be slain, this day!”

Nightingale’s skirt armor parted at the sides. The bait had been taken. The kill was never his to take— it was hers. The blades concealed in her two sub-arms slashed flesh as chainmail failed. She was a Gundam killer, she was  _designed_  to cull through material stronger than whatever these humans deemed sufficient. Red spattered the deck leading up to the fountain that once spilled spirit eggs, now dry. The human was thrown with the force of her swing and landed headfirst against stone. Gore spilled from his body. He couldn’t even howl, could barely sit up to try and push his own guts back inside of him. Tears stung his eyes. Red pushed past his lips, through his fingers, staining decorative pavers. The hat blew off from the gust of a nearby explosion.

The remaining humans cowered. Frightened animals, watching a predator advance.

Nightingale brandished her blades and stepped forward.

“Die foul creature, indeed,” she said.

 

**“Destroy all you see, tattoo the world, change everything...”**

Sevendust,  _Disease_


	2. Blood Sport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aprentis and Ursai are owned by Zerogal. The RP "Ice Queens," its sequels/prequels, and its universe are owned between both of us.

**_Queensverse_  AU**

**. . .**

King Curtis Seroth III had made a terrible mistake.

It was not the kind of mistake that could be taken in stride, or even undone with efficient task. It was the exact kind of mistake that took years to cultivate, push them beyond the point of redemption. The kingdom of Winterhold had fallen. The Arena, the damn Arena, adored by the king so much had been their undoing. Capturing their prized “Beast of Winterhold” as a sparkling and turning him into their top gladiator was a fatal error. An unstoppable force, invincible, could not be fathomed containable forever. Whatever agents of Aurelia and Lacroa came to visit their walls next, they would find a ruin.

“The Beast! He’s free!”

“Out of my way, woman! I can’t die here!”

“The doors won’t open! We’re trapped!”

In more ways than one, yes. Winterhold was not christened for a pleasant seasonal namesake. The cold months were brutal on the mountain, the current blizzard beyond its boundaries vicious. Not even the most armored mech would survive a day in the wilds. Lacroa was a week voyage... if escape from the Arena were possible, there was no place safe in the kingdom. They would all die here, tonight.

A Gundam, almost torn in two clear across his midsection, hurled overhead like a doll. He crashed into a pillar and lay crumpled in a heap, a discarded toy. Haul did not move. The mech must have been dead before he even hit the ground. Another mech, this one whom he recognized as Chapel, sat quietly in one of the seats closest to him. His optics were glassy and faraway. Had he given up hope?

The red femme he saw earlier must have been the one who barricaded all the doors from the outside. Suspicious wench! How could he not have stopped her? The guards and Arena spectators who had the sense to try and break out had no luck. Panicked mechs were throwing themselves at the heavy stone with enough force to shatter their own plating. Now that the Beast of Winterhold was free without restraint, his massive shape was vaulting the wall into the bleachers. Yes, now the real slaughter was going to start. He was busy tearing humans and mecha alike to ribbons, grabbing everyone who came too close. Blood, energon, gore,  _body_ parts…

Captain Aprentis of the Arena’s human guard watched as an unfortunate upper caste woman found herself caught in the monster’s sights.  She screamed as she was held aloft, the sound morphing into a wet shriek as she was pulled on. One massive hand around her chest, the other gripping her heels...

When Tankempharius had   been converted   into a   _vampire_  was anyone’s guess, but his escape made sense.  Vampires were  insanely powerful. No chains could have held him. His shone red in the darkness as he tore her in two. Bone snapped. Flesh stretched and broke apart under the strain of his tremendous pulling.

Captain Aprentis turned to try and crawl away. His courage was gone.

The red femme from before was there now, sitting with Chapel! Now his trance made sense— the chaos kept Aprentis from seeing the two neat holes in his neck, the subtle glow behind Chapel’s eyes. Vampiric hypnosis was no joke. It made you the kind of prey that couldn’t flee, and the Gundamess hanging off Chapel’s shoulder was having a grand ol’ time. Laughing. Smiling sweetly, despite the murders. Her optics shone blood red. Her fangs glimmered.

“Blood sport can be so dull,” Ursai said. Her optics flashed and he remembered nothing else— not until Tank was on top of him next, maw wide and jagged incisors bared.

 

**“In sorrow, I speak your name, and my voice mirrors my torment...”**

Killswitch Engage,  _The End of Heartache_


	3. Playing With Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirage, Thannos, and the name Chronos are owned by Chaos Phoniex. The RP "Whispers" and its universe are owned between both of us.

**_Whispersverse_ AU (alternate timeline)**

**. . .**

His contract was specific. The warlord wanted a corpse by the end of the week.

“Whichever will wound their morale most,” Thannos said. The Gundam was a looming monolith, a terrifying presence. “Make any observations necessary, then execute the best candidate. I don’t care for the method, but make it messy. Commander Sazabi and Chronos need their attentions... shifted.”

His new employment was no mistake. His resume was his very reputation, and that reputation was enough to garner the attention of an extremely respectable client. Thannos was the _behemoth_ of all his customers. His very name was the product of another multiverse conqueror, a Mad Titan who culled half a universe. Not even Professor Gerbera commanded such a presence when seeking his commission in the past, demanded such potent respect in the face of killing entire worlds... though Mirage suspected that the General succeeded Thannos in his madness. It didn’t matter anymore— Zeong was dead, and the Dark Axis proper was gone. Only the loosely organised Axians remained, contained by the will of their Commanders. Once conquerors, now guarding a quiet city called _Neotopia._ It was the most hideous kind of nest they could have picked.

What a delight, though! To be given this paid assignment was a blessing in disguise. He had wanted to find the Commanders for a long time, for good reason. He had an old score to settle, an “old friend” whom he wished to test. Break her so horribly that she could entertain him once again. It would be like killing two birds with one stone. He knew _exactly_ who to kill for Thannos, no spying period necessary, to make the Fold of the Axis Remnants falter. To destroy Commander Cyan.

The plunge of a well-placed knife thrust was all he needed.

The moment came when the Axian fell into his trap. Commander Kriegar of the _Killswitch Musai_ moved into position, as if this performance was rehearsed. One of the less attractive Commanders, that one. Vented mouthpiece, too-broad chassis, whites and greys... Cyan had no taste in lovers. One of Kriegar’s books was misaligned on the shelf of his vast library. A pathetic scholar, this one. Hardly the proper Commander one expected of the Dark Axis. Professor Gerbera excelled in at least one regard when he made his army: they could be easily manipulated if their territory was disturbed. The white mech went to push the book back into position, then called out if anyone was there.

Mirage dropped onto the mech from above.

“Boo.”

The serrated blade was custom made, crafted from Gundanium. Refined once in a sacred forge in Ark, one time blessed by a black mage in Lacroa: gentle persuasions to will the weapon even more deadly. He plunged it ten times in soft tubing before Kriegar had the mind to scream. The huge mech cried out for help from his crew —  for his mate —  and was reduced to half crawling on the ground before Mirage finally took pity on him. He kicked him onto his back, stepped on his chest and pinned him there. The Axian’s engine shuttered in pain. The Commander was actually crying. That lone optic offered a subtle tremor of animal terror.

“I’ll tell Cyan you said hello,” Mirage said.

The knife met Commander Kriegar’s throat. Over and over. Until there was nothing left to scream with.

 

**"You should know, I'm dangerous. My thirst for blood turns me on. How sweet..."**

Alesana, _The Murderer_


	4. Horns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddock, Giras, and Rendo are owned by Zerogal. The RP "Ice Queens," its sequels/prequels, and its universe are owned between both of us.

**_Queensverse_ AU (alternate timeline)**

**. . .**

Maddock had seen many deaths in his lifetime.

Just about anything could kill you in Solar Diorama, if you tried hard enough. Having your head sliced off by a rogue katana in an Ark bar right. Being struck down by the infamous Royal Curse, if you were a Royal Knight. Gored by a Clarke, the most fearsome of Axia’s monsters, if you ventured into its purple hazed territories. The war with the Dark Axis brought its own wave of horror, too. Dying prematurely was part of their planet’s very culture. Survival of the fittest. There were no room for weaklings in these lands. No wonder there were so few humans...

Deaths at the hands of vampires could be particularly brutal. Lacroa had no shortage of those.

Maddock thought it an honor, being the most powerful vampire warlord in the world. He could bring death to his enemies in a way that was frankly _noble_. Lacroa would regret the day it tried to stand up to his fury. The bodies of its mecha would feed his army all the way into Ark, and the nation’s past even _that_. Living in the dark and scrambling for scraps would be a distant memory once he was done.

 _Embarrassing_ deaths, however...

Maddock detested confrontation. Fighting was peon work, intended for the grunts and admirals under his command. His kingdom had spread far in the years since the Dark Axis invasion weakened the superpowers of Solar Diorama. He was already pushing into Ark. Lacroa would be taken by force. His vampiric nation would bleed the continent dry— and once he figured out how, he would conquer the other worlds as well. All from his seat on a throne.

The lone Knight Gundam that was trying to oppose him, Chalice, trembled like a frightened child. His sword wavered. “I won’t let you harm Lacroa further, scoundrel!”

“Adorable,” Maddock said.

He had been riding from Fort Darkmount with his commanders, Giras and Rendo, when the knight stumbled into their path. _Stumbled!_ The damn fool had found them on _accident_ , tumbling down the opposite embankment. He must have gotten lost off the main path. A damaged pauldron and scuffed armor gave away that he was recently attacked. One of Maddock’s sentries? It didn’t matter. The Gundam scrambled to his pedes, boasted his name and loyalty to Queen Relehimana herself, and demanded his surrender.

“Want me to eat him?” Giras asked.

Maddock dismounted, handed the reigns to Rendo. He was annoyed that his men hadn’t killed the mech the second he showed up. If you wanted something done right... “No. This one isn’t worth the feed. I will dispatch him.”

Chalice screamed and charged. Sword drawn and poised directly to impale his enemy. All Maddock did was duck down to swipe the mech off his feet. Instead, the fool ran _straight into one of his helmet’s horns._ The entry point was in one of his chest vents. His soulstone shattered as it pushed all the way through to the other side. Chalice sagged and went limp.

Maddock stood back to his full height with the mech still dripping fluids onto his shoulder.

Rendo and Giras _howled_.

“Well,” Maddock said. “Pitiful.”

 

**"Blood and tears, they were here first..."**

Imogen Heap,  _Hide and Seek_


	5. Hey Batter Batter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride. Based on a specific scene from "Craters."

_**Foreververse** _ **AU**

**. . .**

On the third swing, 4N-G3L felt something get jarred loose. His initial fall from ten thousand feet left him scrambled, sure. Sitting in the dark warehouse for almost a week left him weak… but this was nothing like that. That third whack definitely did some damage. The world spun. A warning message popped up in his HUD and was gone a second later when his display-module had a fatal error. He missed his roost in the Fortress, wanted to be with the rest of his wingmates.

“Please—!”  


The human shrieked and brought the iron rod down again. Over and over. Four swings. Five. Six. Seven. Her eyes – those awful organic eyes – glinted in the darkness under pale moonlight.

They failed in their mission to kill Sazabi. Gerbera brought him and his comrades to Neotopia to overwhelm the rogue Commander, punish him for his betrayal. How could he willingly _live_ with the humans, the way he was? Turn his back on the Dark Axis? It was absurd and demanded swift punishment. 4N-G3L and the rest of the flock were terrified. Even with no weapons, this was still _Sazabi._ The Crown Jewel. Many would not survive.

4N-G3L was smacked out of the sky less than eight seconds into the dogfight. He crashed into an abandoned structure and found himself pinned under collapsed steel beams. No one came to get him– they killed themselves the second they lost contact with the Professor.

Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

He felt the metal on his helm start to cave. His fans were screaming. Condensation broke out over his armor as his body worked to cool itself. His wings were bent and he didn’t have enough fuel to make his thrusters catch. There was no way for him to fire off his rockets to _scare_ the human away. He desperately reached out over the Newtype Network to find someone – anyone – for comfort. A rescue was invalid at this point, but he wanted another Axian to know he was here. That he was suffering. That he wanted nothing more than to be with them. No one had "friends" in the Dark Axis, but you could have allies. Company. It was better than dying alone. He originally thought he could ask this human to help him, but...

“Human, _please stop—!”_

Another blow. Thirteen. This time the armor around his head caved. Pressure was put on his processor from within. The shock-struts that supported it were no longer viable.

The trapped Doga Bomber started to cry. His hands were smacked away whenever he reached up to defend himself. His fingers were smashed beyond recognition.

“I want to go _home…!”_

The next bat to the head rendered him silent. He lost count of the blows. His communications center was smashed, battered to pieces that tumbled inside his cranium. Then he was blind. Then he couldn’t remember anything else that came before that comforting darkness. Where was he? Had he always been here? A presence pulsed at him. Over and over. Familiar and safe.

He welcomed the next strikes in quiet submission. It was the only thing his ruined processor was familiar with. He leaned his head into the sensation until nothing was left of him.

 

**"I fought the fight, now only dark remains forever..."**

Breaking Benjamin,  _Angels Fall_


	6. Drowning

**. . .**

In and out. In and out.

They didn’t need oxygen, but vented circulation was still important. It kept your insides from overheating when cooling fans weren’t enough. Gave you something to focus on when you had nothing else. Reminded you that you were still alive after getting blasted out of the sky, right front of your Commander and entire squad, like a piece of garbage. A bitter serving of failure despite his continued functionality. He was humiliated. Damage warnings flashed in his HUD but he still stood, still continued to _breathe_ in the face of embarrassment. Tragedy. Pain.

In and out. In and out.

Two of his three primary allies were dead, slaughtered by the Gundams where he couldn’t save them. The third was captured, also his fault. He himself had been overwhelmed by a human and his sleepwalking _pet,_ a half-comatose statue rather than a full Gundam. He immediately apologized to the Commander for his oversight. He could still _fix_ this. Destroy the enemy, obtain repairs, and rescue his still-living wingmate...

In and out. In and out.

“How unsightly.”

In and out. In and error. Error. _Error_.

He choked. He felt like he was having a sensory overload in the wrong places, blooming across his back and stretching outward to his wings. Locking him in place at the pedes. Piercing through and out of him. It wasn’t necessarily a bad sensation. Just unknown. Warm and cool at the same time. He suddenly couldn’t remember what he was _doing_ at least three seconds after he first stood up and... what had he said to the Commander? He leaned into the numbness, content to linger there. It was when he couldn’t force air back out of his vents that the first twinge of panic touched him. What had gone wrong? He tried to run a diagnostic, reboot his functions to factory settings to repair the malfunction. His computers were frozen.

Error. Error. Error.

The surviving member of the Four reached down their collective bond for him. Screaming for him to _get out of there._ Relaying raw agony, even when he himself felt nothing but heat and—

Choking. Fans breaking. Molten metal dripping into his body’s main cavern, searing precious circuitry.

His main computer caught up with the rest of his core processor. Red band warnings bloomed across his vision, alarms blaring with strained volume. He was quickly losing _mass_. Pain receptors were firing on full tilt. Multiple major systems were failing across the board, crippling his body and rendering him a dead mech standing. There would be no recovery from this. The sensors in his back were _atomizing._ Starting to chew forward straight through him. The Commander’s vulcan cannon, the most powerful mech-side mounted weapon in Dark Axis history, tore him to pieces on a molecular level.

He was being _shot at._

His terror was a muted afterthought, honestly. He knew why, too: his processor was disintegrating. The blast was picking his particles apart faster than it could melt his armor. His physical receptors were burnt out by now. All the pain he felt at this point was mental. His body’s last attempt to stimulate a sensation that would encourage him to _move out of the way,_ which was now impossible. Any kinetics that would have let him move were destroyed. Now _he_ was the statue. A prisoner in a body that couldn’t even scream.

He reached out for Doga Yellow and clung to him through their ruined bond. He wished Blue and Purple were there, too. Just so he could say goodbye.  _He’s killing us._

Suffocating. Smoke clogging his warped vents. Sealing his body like a tomb, to cook from the inside out.

Doga Grey drowned on his feet before Commander Sazabi’s blast punched through his nuclear core.

 

**"Every word shot down in flames..."**

Céline Dion,  _Ashes_


	7. Transformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vesta belongs to Zerogal. The RP "Ice Queens," its sequels/prequels, and its universe are owned between both of us.

**_Queensverse_ AU**

**. . .**

Vesta’s voice was far away, burrowing into a distant whisper. An echo from a faraway canyon, swallowed by snowfall. “By Mana’s light… stop! You must fight it! Fight, damn it!”

But there was no saving him now. The bite from the creature that had clamped down on him on his last hunt wasn’t purified correctly. Healers could only do so much for a wound that was fated for nothing but a monster. His arm throbbed from the site of his healed injury outward. Resonating deep in his core. His idiot body _relished_ in it. His vision tunnelled as he stared up at the twin moons of Solar Diorama and felt his body grow numb, then _ache._

_Be well met, my hunter._

He was charged with an electric current and wanted – needed – to run _._ Raw energy channelled through his core and leapt across his brain like lightning. He wanted nothing more than to charge out of the clearing and bolt through the woods, go up the mountainside into uncharted territory. Claim the wilds as his with furious intent. But watching the moons felt so good. _Too good._ He was transfixed, locked in his own trembling armor as the changes started to take place. It drew his mind up and away from the snow underfoot. The ache became a burning, became an itching, became the kind of pain that didn’t feel real. His internals were _migrating_. Shifting. Rearranging like a winding serpent. He screamed long and hard. His whole body was hot when the exterior started to alter as well.

 _“Love!_ Come back to me! _You have to FIGHT!”_

Frantic hands grappled his chest. Tugging to try and wrench him to reality, but it was too late. He smacked her intrusion away. How could he expected to fight a sensation so terrific? The pain wasn't a negative demerit anymore. It was a friend, somehow. He was already rising into a black fog, sinking into the sky, ushered in by that wonderful moonlight.

_“PLEASE!”_

He always wondered why the beasts that the Jaeger Clan hunted refused death so adamantly, as if they _wanted_ to live. How could a monster willingly endure a fate such as being a monster? Now he understood. The pain was his body’s but not his mind’s. He listened, hypnotized by that moonlight, as his backstrut snapped forward and his limbs elongated. Magically charged energy drawn by untamed Mana bent his legs unnaturally. It pushed unbelievable mass into his tubes, shattered dentas, stretched his scarred face. His battlemask broke when he couldn’t snap it back in time. He yawned and his maw felt _enormous_. His gauntlets cracked from strain as the joints ballooned. His shaking hands sprouted claws.

The urge to run was replaced with something new. The urge to _chase._ Hunt.

Another volley of desperate hands clambering for him, trying to pull his head down. Metal fingers knotted in patches of synthetic, metal fiber fur that burst through his seams. White as the snow beginning to fall around them. The moons were finally starting to choke behind the clouds, but the damage was too far gone. He roared and knocked Vesta back into the ground and hunched over her, breathing heavy like an animal. Letting the cold air fill his massive body, breathing into him fresh life. The earth quaked with his newfound weight, untamed power.

His trembling lover began to cry, curled in terror in the snow. Tears stung Vesta's optics. _“Talgeese…!”_

The Knight of Tempest – newly fledged lycanthrope, werewolf – howled his wild bliss to the stars.

 

**"I hear they're getting closer, their howls are sending chills down my spine..."**

Within Temptation,  _The Howling_


	8. Oh So Many Eyes

**. . .**

He should have been relieved. Was he just ungrateful? Selfish? Did they _know?_ Was that why none of his “friends” had come to save him in the first place?

So many eyes.

After being alone for so long, there was no reason for him to be afraid when the rescue finally came. The spacebridge explosion was terrifying enough… but being lost in the wilds of uncharted space? That was an outright horror. The fear of not knowing if you would be found. The notion of being trapped in a black prison forever. The looming monolith caught him off guard when it suddenly appeared and broke the streak of nothingness. He never saw it coming.

So many eyes.

It wasn’t any kind of ship Neotopia had built. There was no friendly aura to it. No animal characature or face plastered on its surface to give it a sense of approachability. Not even a set of cartoonish arms attached to the surface to wave him hello. No— this ship was all dark spikes and pulsating rivets of lavender. The fluorescent searchlight pumped him frightened the second it passed over him, made his white plating glow ethereal. It was a stupid thought to have ever considered this ship Neotopian at all, but it still saved him. Plucked him from the cold. Moved him... inside. He didn’t remember that part.

So many eyes.

He tried to convince himself not to be afraid. No matter what it looked like, this object was a _sanctuary_. He had finally been recovered! The person inside who had dragged him into its hull saved him from another day – month, year – from floating in that unforgiving vacuum. It hadn’t been enough to not hear himself scream. Space left you with no senses at all. No smell. No taste. No sight. No sense in counting touch, either, there was no one to hold on to. Your own body stopped feeling real when you spent that long hugging yourself.

So many eyes.

The nagging question still lingered. Why _hadn’t_ he been rescued by familiar faces, though? Was that why this was so frightening? All the people looking at him now had their faces swirling around him, circling with grimaces that made him cower. Why were they all staring at him like that? He tried to ask. They stayed silent and continued to observe. The more fear he felt, the worse their swirling expressions became. He was hyperventilating. Shaking. These saviors had done so much for him, but why wouldn’t they comfort him further? Why were they just _looking_ at him?

“Please...” he tried to beg.

So many _eyes._

Why hadn’t his brother come for him? His creator— father. The rest of his half-siblings. Those who toted that they were his friends. Everyone who boasted to him that no matter what happened, they would _never_ let anything bad happen to him.

They lied.

Of course they lied.

No one loves you.

_So many eyes._

That was when he realized what he was looking at. Drifting for so long made him forget. He had seen himself in a mirror before, shortly before his deployment on the _Zero One_ experimental spacecraft. He was passing the reflective surface of a spare solar panel in the storage area of Blanc Base’s uppermost satellite base. He regarded himself for long enough to have a vague memory. The faces he was looking at were his own.

_So many eyes so many eyes so many eyes so many eyes._

Madnug cowered and sobbed. Continued crying, even before that dark god Zeong took his hand and instilled in him _real_ terror. Allowed him rebirth in the darkness from whence he came.

Professor Gerbera designed his Dark Axis army to have mono-optical vision.

 

**"We'll be there soon to break your heart, and spite your face..."**

Aesthetic Perfection,  _The Ones_


	9. Infection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlus Industries belongs to BetterBeMeta. "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta, too. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride.

**_Foreververse_ AU**

**. . .**

“Don’t move! I’m gonna give you a little attitude adjustment…”

At first, he had no idea what happened.

The day started so great, too. A perfect afternoon to get a major job done and out of the way, so the newest Neotopia metro highway could be opened. It’d make everyone’s commute into the city so much less congested. He had a brand-new body to show off, too— the kind that would make the board of directors at Altus Industries collectively shit themselves. Yeah, Mayor Gathermoon had a few tricks up her sleeves when it came to commissioning high tech, AI modular frames that were robot-friendly. GRIP Co. already specialized in automated backyard digging tools for private citizens, so it was a match made in heaven. His regular GM body was actually plugged into his excavation frame right now! Risky AI chip moves or three hour long remote transfers of GMs into different work-related frames would be a thing of the past once the landmark GARIPIS ONE was showcased.

Grippo’s voice behind him was faraway. “Papa?”

They weren’t biologically related, obviously. Robots couldn’t have children the same way humans could. But Grippo had come the same authentication batch as him thirty years removed. As a result, their relationship was very much familial. Gripapa was still Grippo’s dad, no matter what anyone said. He loved that kid more than anything. GRIP Co. loved it too. They offered them both the chance to be their star diggers to finish a long outstanding city project. One that Atlus Industries had abandoned after Gathermoon won her last election, in protest. Their cute matchy names and father-son duo would look great in the news!

“Anything to piss off those goons,” Gripapa said, then apologized for swearing in front of Grippo.

But things had gone wrong. In the middle of refining the last underground stretch, they were attacked. Grippo was in the older GRIPS Top Digging Machine model, hitched behind him. Four little green robots cut a hole in the ceiling above Gripapa as he passed. They timed it perfectly— waiting for him.

They slapped the first little red machine on top of his head.

The sensation was awful. Like a failed Wipe, and Gripapa knew all too well what _that_ was like. He was from a generation that Grippo never had to endure, back when mobile citizens had no rights at all. When a robot stopped being as effective in their job as the humans wanted, they went to get their processors... erased. A "reboot." It was horrifying. Gripapa had been Wiped three times before he went in for his fourth, the last. It failed and his memory survived, but the sensation was torture. Like fire blooming across your processor, smashing your brain into an electric wall that exploded on contact. You were in agony the whole time and unable to scream. The humans turned off your voice box for the surgery.

Then there was a new sensation. Anger. Why was he digging this tunnel anyways? To prove what? To show the mother fuckers at Atlus Industries that he was more than some toy that could be thrown away? They did it once, and they would do it again. _Fuck them._ He was being too nice doing it like this. They deserved to choke on their own goddamn vomit for what they did. For what they could have done to Grippo if they ever got their greasy hands on him. Humans were all the same.

The infection travelled through his whole frame. The unrestrained _rage_.

Coordinates pinged in the remote coding of the second control horn. He braked, raised his drills, and banked right at full throttle towards the city.

Kill 'em all, honestly.

 

**"You supply the rumours, and I'll provide the wrath..."**

The Birthday Massacre, _Blue_


	10. Hanahaki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary and the Monsters was a joint creation between BetterBeMeta and I. "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride.

**_Foreververse_ AU**

**. . .**

Kanon Kampher coughed again— purple fluttered to the floor below.

Napoleon twittered excitedly. “Nice! That’s an improvement!”

Maryanne Morales looked far less convinced as she hung up the phone and walked back into the lounge. “He’s still vomiting. None of this is an improvement.”

“You’re just not thinking positive, zako! That was way less, this time!”

 _Mary and the Monsters_ was one of the most popular bands on the Neotopia music scene right now. Their second album had won a slew of awards and nominations she couldn't keep up with. They went platinum. All their shows were sold out six months in advance, but Mary was terrified. For one, a Lacroan witch – and that was the only thing she could figure to describe her as, a _witch_ – managed to get on stage during their last performance. She got past security and tried to grab Mary mid-song. Instead, the band pianist got between them. While the ex-squadron leader seemed okay at first, they had to cancel the next show on their _Super Destinies_ tour. He was puking. Which made no sense because he was a robot and also they were flower petals.

Kanon heaved and there was another bout of shredded violet roses fluttering to the studio floor. His unhinged jaws hung open in exhaustion.

“Gross,” Dagger said. The rhythm guitarist didn’t look up from tuning. “Cleanup on Aisle Disaster.”

Ham went by with a little dustpan and brush. The hygoog assassin's claws got in the way a lot.

“The Gundam Force will call us back soon about that cure they said they could get,” Seto said. “Right, Mary?”

“Yeah. That was them on the phone now. Zero the Knight Gundam knows where they can find another witch for the counter curse.” Mary sat down on the sofa next to Kanon and rubbed his back, hoping that would help. She could hear the crackling in his chassis as more of those _things_ just… what? Materialized? Were they _growing_ in him? Jesus. “Its a love spell, I guess? If you have like… a crush on someone, and it's one-sided,  _this_ happens. Its fatal in humans if left alone, but for robots its mostly only annoying. I owe you one, Kanon.”

Napoleon was _delighted_ at this, but for the wrong reason. “KK has a crush, zako? Who is it!? I wanna know, zako—!”

The drummer barely dodged a set of his own sticks thrown straight at him. Purging for so long, all day, had made Kanon’s aim with much to be desired.

“It doesn’t matter. Once they get the counter spell, Kanon’s romantic feelings will be gone. The crush won’t matter.” Mary reached up and rubbed the back of his head. “Want me to get you something?”

It didn't matter that her entire band was Axians, except for her. They were still family. She hated seeing any of them hurt, especially if this curse was originally meant for her...

More petals, directly in her lap. “I’m good.”

It wasn’t until later that Mary noticed how he was looking at Dagger. The blue doga bomber looked like he could have cared less for the disaster starting to billow at their feet (it was going to be _days_ before they cleared all the flowers). When the mech finally turned in for the night, Kanon buried his face in his hands and cried. Napoleon and Ham left when the awkward realization hit them. Seto poked his head in and gave Mary an apologetic look, but there was nothing to apologize for. She stayed with Kanon, hugging him when she thought it was okay.

“I wouldn’t like me either,” he said, followed by another wave of petals.

 

**"Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along..."**

Evanescence, _My Immortal_


	11. Scratches

**. . .**

Metal scraping metal. Scratches gouging deep into his armor.

The sound started to wake him up. “What...?”

Several things garnered priority at once, needing to be addressed in the order that he noticed them. The immediate problem begging attention was the amount of _pain_ he was in. Sharp and poignant, throbbing through jagged spots across his neural network. No HUD warnings displayed in his flickering vision. A lone notification pinged to him that his battle computer was no longer functional. Diagnostics was down. A second ping warned him that he needed immediate repairs— or else. Stasis lock was disabled to keep him from dying while unconscious. He whimpered and tried to scrounge the strength to sit up, and even _that_ was useless. He was paralyzed. A prisoner in his own body. His head ached. Static buzzing in his audial-center alongside the screeching of titanium _dragging—_

He was being dragged.

Yes, _that_ set off some red flags. It was moved to the top of the list of things he had to investigate.

He blinked furiously. Any attempts to focus on his captor were met by additional visual bugs. Warped images flickering, impossible to focus on. Had he been… shot? Yes. It was confirmed only when his vision clocked in as normal for a brief second, long enough for him to get his bearings back. A dark hand was wrapped around his ankle, pulling his dead weight along. His leg was a tattered mosaic of bullet holes still bleeding smoke. The other leg was nowhere to be seen. A worrisome development. His back was being drawn against the ground. He turned his head and struggled to see past the static blinding him.

He started to remember things. Only in bits and pieces, though. The cranium damage was worse than he thought.

A showdown to determine the winner of privileged position. To serve someone of high standard. His opponent being weak and _honorable_. Hah! What a joke! There was no honor in the Dark Axis, no comradery deserved for being someone who played by the “rules.” Only the strong would survive, and the strong strove to achieve victory no matter the cost. He brought a shield to a fist fight— a shield with mounted rockets. He would win this contest by force.

His vision came back again. White and silver streaks of paint transfer scarred the ground where he was being pulled along. A sea of Zako soldiers watched with glowing pink pinpricks as they drew further and further away.

His assailant stopped dragging him. Stopped scratching his armor further, for now.

He turned his head to confront them.

At the very least, he found his missing leg. It must have been blown off in the hail of bullets he endured. Yes, now he remembered. Zapper Zaku hefted it up and tossed over the edge of the _Magna Musai,_ using the hand that wasn’t holding onto his ankle. It disappeared from view. The squadron leader was now marked with a proper command-fin that had never been there before, and his attentions to him. Zapper dropped his ankle, turned, and hefted him up by the throat with tremendous strength. His optic burned red.

Solitary Gyan choked on his intakes and reached up weakly. Clawing at the other mech’s arm.

“Have mercy?” he asked. Not even a convincing grovel.

Zapper offered no expression. He just _stared_.

Shooting that young Zako was a fatal mistake.

Zapper dropped him over the bow of the ship. With every floating boulder Solitary struck on the way down, from over five thousand feet, his body was a canvas of scratches that cut deeper and deeper. By the time he hit the bottom, they cut straight through him, shattering his corpse into a clawed wreckage.

**"I'll pull the trigger, and you're down, down, down..."**

Korn, _Thoughtless_


	12. Let The Blood Flow

**alternate timeline**

**. . .**

He had failed his Master.

In his home village, Shiso was taught at an early age that failure was unacceptable. He and his brothers had trained all their lives under the watchful eye of their sensei and learned it as a hard lesson. He remembered one time where Karashi fell asleep on the second night of a three day session where they were required to be alert at all times. Punishment was swift. The sparkling suffered humiliation in front of the elders, paraded and shamed. Another time, Wasabi fumbled with his darts, was lashed for wasting precious poison. Aonori was forced to sleep outside during a typhoon in the mud for reasons unknown. Even Rayu – _perfect_ Rayu – faced discipline once. He was to stand in the sun for three days, with no food or water. For a youngling, it was agony.

Shiso preferred not to remember his own torment. He still had scars, but the training paid off in dividends. He and his brothers were the most feared ninjas in Ark.

Now Karashi, Aonori, Wasabi, and Rayu were dead. Slaughtered by the Blazing Samurai. Shisno was bested by the one they called _Captain_.

Kibaomaru refused to take him back.

There was only one way to regain his honor.

He plucked up his blade, hefted it high, and plunged it into his abdomen. Samurai were not the only one who practiced seppuku. In his village, they called it _harakiri_.

Genkimaru’s voice was a tortured _howl_. The brat’s voice carried like a gunshot from the Tanega Rifle. Impressive. “NO!”

Shiso made the first cut, and the effect was immediate. Fuel-rich, thick fluid spilled from him. In a perfect world he would have taken the time to plead for a proper setup, but there simply wasn’t _time_. His failure was so potent that he needed to grapple for his honor back immediately. He felt numb. He couldn’t remember making the second cut upward but supposed it was instinctual at that point. He knew what to do, knew he had to _finish_ before pain struck him and forced him into submission. He would have made the final slash but found himself curled over himself before he could get there. No! He had to— _had to…!_

He cried. Like an utter _fucking_ child. Not with his voice, but his eyes stung. He couldn’t even have his own death with dignity.

He never remembered rolling onto his side, or having his blade smacked away from him. Genkimaru was over him, feebly pressing his hands into his gored stomach to stifle the bleeding. Black fluid ran from him in a river down the deck of Tenchijo Castle.

“Cobramaru! COBRAMARU!” The boy was sobbing. Strange. After everything that he had put the runt through, hunting him down, manhandling him like a package… had he honestly grown attached to him? Why?

Kibaomaru’s voice was worse than any knife, carried over the courtyard coolly. “Pathetic.”

In his tunnelling vision, Shiso saw something get shoved into his hand. Genkimaru was covered in black and brown, mucked with burnt oil and the last of his own runoff. The item was a rice ball. The boy was crying uncontrollably.

“Take it. Please _take it._ ” He burned his face in his blackened hands. “Cobramaru…”

Shiso couldn’t help but crush it. He couldn’t control how hard he gripped. It was a nice gesture, but he was tired. So tired. The river he had made was trailing further away, towards the edge of the castle.

Cobramaru’s gunsoul flashed gold and his body collapsed in on itself, the energy carried on the wind. The river reached the edge of the castle and dripped off.

 

**"Return to me, salvation..."**

Evanescence,  _Tourniquet_


	13. Insects

**. . .**

Those who were swarmed were lucky. There was no delay when they froze in place, flashed into concrete. There was no time for it to hurt, no time to register what was happening to your body. The streets were a maze of statues when the cloud first came through, surging into the Neotopia government center. Blasting through Universal Avenue and the mass exodus of citizens being evacuated. Spreading outward from there, uptown to downtown. People who were still posting on the internet said it went as far as Peace Park. Then there was no more cell coverage.

He hid inside Tomino Cafe when the initial swarm drifted past. When he saw people trying to get outside to continue their escape from the elementary school across the street, he followed suit.

The other patrons warned him not to, that they should wait for someone to save them.

He wasn't about to wait around after seeing all he had _that_ day. If he could make it to the subway and walk along the tracks, he could get out of the city to the safety of the countryside. Those... robots. The flying ones. They were after the GMs the night before. The attacks over the past twelve hours were apparently contained to the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. He could get away. Plus, the buzzing had faded into silence outside— it should have been okay.

But some of the bugs lingered. Flew silently until they were too close and it was too late. One bite was all it took.

Thomas Reed felt the sting on his ankle, then went down when his entire foot _smashed to pieces_ in a mid-stride of his jog. The buzzing went past his head as the fly decided its work was done. Tom was on his ass in the middle of the street now, watching as the concrete creeped up his leg, bleeding into his clothes. Across his midsection. Down the other leg as it crept higher towards his chest. His arms shook as he watched in abject horror. It hurt, like the ache of broken bones. He felt numb and heavy and he wanted to cry but there wasn’t any moisture. He had cottonmouth. He tasted dust.

“Help me!” he begged. “Someone please _help me!”_

There was no one to hear him— no one except for the only other soul who had ended up in the same situation. Across the street from him, on the corner of Antarctic and Helens by the bus stop, was a girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Likely bitten by the same monster. She was leaning up against the bus stop, tears stinging her face while her body turned to stone from the lower back upward. It moved down her thighs to her knees, locking her in place while she leaned for support and cried.

“MOM! IT HURTSSS!” She hyperventilated, shuttered. “I CAN’T BREATHE!”

Thomas was finding it hard to breathe too. Especially when turbines fired off overhead. One of those flying robots – mustard yellow and brown, built like a fighter plane – flew over one of the buildings and circled low. It landed in the middle of the street on top of someone’s ruined sedan, crushing the roof and shattering the windshield as it stepped off. It stood and surveyed the scene. The girl _screamed_ at the sight of it, then choked. Grey bloomed in the corners of her mouth, her nose, throat. The bug was still biting. She would suffocate, die standing, before she was ever a proper statue.

His screams resumed where hers left off. A prisoner in his own body, watching as stone continued migrating upwards to meet him.

 

**"Hunger for the living helps them hunt it with the greatest of ease..."**

CKY, _Escape From Hellview_


	14. Bruises

**. . .**

Shute was increasingly aware of the fact that he _hated_ lying to his mom.

Keiko looked horrified when he walked into the kitchen that night. She dropped the dishes she was washing and they smashed in the sink. _“What did you—?”_

“Skating,” he said. “I tried racing the trains again. Sorry…”

Nanako took one look at him from her height chair and started to scream.

Throwing himself under the bus like that was still better than saying what really happened. No—  _really_. He’d much rather end up grounded than risk exposing his family, even on accident, to the fact that the Dark Axis was a thing. Aliens invading from another dimension definitely had higher priority over living a normal life. He had to protect them from that kind of stuff. All in a day's work of being part of the Gundam Force, right?

This newest injury wasn’t even the worst of the bruises, either.

Seriously! Why were Haro, his dad, and mom so worked up for? He was still nursing the one he got from rolling out of the way of Zapper a week earlier, and five days before that? Grappler actually managed to _hit_ him. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but it was a vicious backhand all the same. The fall down the side of a rocky hill was what left him with the shiner. _That_ injury he was able to pin on a game of catch gone awry. His best friend definitely had a solid throw, with arms like that.

Captain stared at him.

“Mom took my skates away,” Shute explained when his friend arrived. It was the next morning, after an all-night trip to the emergency room. Definitely an overreaction, considering he was already checked out at Blanc Base after the last mission anyways. They said he was fine! He had confined himself to his workshop knowing Captain would come by. “Aww geez, are Zapper and the others back again already? I’m not very fast on my own, but I’m sure I can—”

“Shute.” Captain’s voice was strangled. Almost static-laced. Uh-oh! Did the bad guys damage his vocalizer?

“It’s not so bad!” Shute said, realizing that his friend was staring. Right. “I forgot, the bruise only started forming after they took me on the gunperry by myself. It looks worse than it is, Captain. Honest! It doesn't even hurt, haha!"

 _“Shute.”_ Captain didn’t seem capable of saying anything else.

The blast from Destroyer Dom's rocket launcher had thrown him off his feet during the last fight. Which wouldn't have been so bad, if he had landed someplace soft... but the construction depot on one of the docks was a concrete jungle. The building he was running alongside wasn't great for catching his body, or really anything that was made out of meat. Being tossed felt awful on its own, but the evidence was downright hideous. The entire right hand of Shute’s face showed where he struck cinderblock. A solid wall of black and discolored greys, browns, and blues. “I mean it! I didn’t even get a concussion. Oh geez— you’re not upset are you? I’ll be more careful next time, Destroyer caught me off guard, that's all—”

Captain fell to his knees in front of him. In its casing, Shute could see the Soul Drive compartment glass flickering. A candle struggling to stay lit during an evening breeze. The Gundam was shaking. Even with his "emotion emote" suite installed, this was... different. Shute had never seen this kind of reaction out of his friend. Captain's pupil displays were dilated. His hands rose in front of him and were shaking.

“Buddy?”

Captain Gundam buried his face in his hands and said nothing.

 

**"Don't be afraid, I've taken my beating..."  
  
** Linkin Park, _Leave Out All The Rest_


	15. Nosebleed

**Multiple AUs**

**. . .**

CRUNCH!

_“FUCK!”_

The mood was shattered in an instant. There was a mad scramble in the dark as they both forgot where the light switch was. She barely avoided getting hit in the face again, scrambling off her partner when he sat up. Even in pitch black the world felt like it was spinning backward. The entire front of her face was hot and wet. She reached up with her hands and felt the heat soak through her palms, drip through the seal of her clenched fingers.

“Jesus fuck, you _punched_ me.”

“WHERE THE PITT IS IT!?” The pink of her husband's optic flared, finally giving off enough light. The room was still on tilt but she saw the switch and reached out with her free hand, smacking it hard. The lights came on in the penthouse bedroom.

The sheets were stained red. The switch had a bloody palm print.

Tango yelled _._ “RENEE!"

“Shit, hold on Tee! Give me a fuckin’ minute!” Renee scrambled backwards, still naked and covered in way more blood than she should have. A monster nosebleed and _then_ some. The pain was starting to set in, too. Thank God the bed hadn't been elevated yet, she was able to scramble out of the "roost" at ground level without falling ten feet. Her head spun.

So much for finishing. Sex usually didn't end so badly...

Renee staggered out of the bedroom into the wide apartment, making her way to the kitchen. She fumbled for one of the clean towels off the counter along the way, still holding her face. She bowed over the sink and ran the hot tap, moving her hand away and trying to wash off. Blood kept gushing. The smell of it was in her nostrils and she felt like she was going to be sick—

She was.

Renee fought it down, tried to feel for her nostrils to try and plug her nose. She... couldn't find them. “Get me my phone, Tango! I need to see how bad it is!”

Turbines firing off behind her. Doga Orange of the Nu Commandos crossed the entire length of the apartment in a single jet boost. He wasn’t holding her phone, but was shakily gripping creased pajamas. His interface-array was already closed. “I’m flying you to the hospital. Your nose is severely broken and you're losing—”

She couldn’t fight it. She puked into the sink and immediately turned on the disposal to get rid of it. She fumbled with the towel.

“What the hell happened?”

“I tried to reach up and— _fuck.”_ His voice broke. “I smashed my heel into your nose. I can’t even see it…!”

“It’s there, it’s just _crushed,_ they can fix it.” Renee shook. The shock was evaporating. Pain settled in faster, throbbing out from the middle of her face outward. “How many people kn—?”

“Shatterock is on his way to look for your purse and wallet in the apartment. Rombra has already called ER staff. Copspin will met us halfway. I am flying you to Del Toro Memorial _immediately_.”

“The makeup sex is going to be fantastic,” she tried joking, then regretted it. Flexing her mouth made it worse. She whimpered.

The Axian couldn’t get the shirt on, so he wrapped the towel around her chest and covered her up as best he could. It was better than going tits first into the emergency room. She didn’t even realize he was able to get her pants on. He hefted her up, shouldered the doors open onto the landing pad deck. His optic was flared and he was whining.

“I am so sorry.”

Renee finally started crying.

 

 **"You bruise my face: couldn't love you more, you got a beautiful taste..."**  
  
Bush, _Glycerine_


	16. Obsessed

**. . .**

“I did it for you, Rele,” Deed said to his Princess.

Relehimana did not voice her reply. Stone froze her beautiful complexion, made her lovely skin grey and cold.

Things had gone further than he ever thought possible. He hadn’t originally meant for this, whatever _this_ was, but the universe had unfurled for him in utter perfection. That day on the lakeside when the Monolith arrived was a blessed one. Death incarnate had arrived, but he alone had the will to finally achieve his desires _and_ save Lacroa. Then, when he almost gave up out of fear, the Professor had been there to reconvince him. Yes.

“Take what belongs to you.”

He turned his obsession into a reality. It would be a blood price to preserve Lacroa from obliteration and seize the throne for himself in the process. With the _minimal_ assistance of Commander Nightingale, he allowed the Dark Axis to take the city and unleash its stone curse— but only when the Princess was safe. He debated smashing the King to pieces once the insects claimed him but decided against it. He wanted the old codger to be around when he eventually unpetrified the Kingdom, paraded his daughter in front of him as his bride.

Then his Princess was petrified regardless. The Professor refused to produce a chemical counter-curse, insisting of a complication in his formula! Those damn mages were supposed to _protect her!_ Zero as her body guard would have been easy enough to dispatch… but rather than preserve their Princess, she and the Wisemen sent Zero to another world. The bagu bagu claimed them in the midst, protection spells wasted.

Deed took out his anger on his former colleagues.

Nataku was cut down first, once they were drawn into the General’s chamber. He separated from the Steel Dragon for the task, unveiling Deathscythe. He wanted his idiot _inferior_ comrades to know they were in the wrong. The scythe cut the weapons-master open at the belly when he refused to strike first, tore him asunder. He sank into acid with an open-mouthed scream.

“NO!” Battol lunged at him with tears in his eyes.

There was no avenging his secret lover. Oh yes— Deed knew _all_ about him and Nataku. He once hoped to get them on his side, only to realize how hopelessly stupid they were. Loyalty to the Royals ran deep even when you were a victim yourself. A backwards swing of his scythe slashed open the red knight’s throat. He bleed to death next to that death pit, optics wide in terror before going dark forever.

Rock took longer to slay. It almost didn’t happen. The Knight of Hot Sands got the upper hand at the last possible second and was about to tear through Deed with a sickle. Fearing for the loss of her Master, the Steel Dragon... intervened. Deed had never seen her kill before, but it was brutal. She clenched down on Rock and shook him until every strut in his body shattered. Then started to _chew_. Jaws snapping shut repeatedly. Her maw was black and neon from Mana enriched fuels. Rock begged for death. In pain and suffering, the leader of the Royal Knights caved like a frightened squire and attempted to appeal to Deed’s sensibilities.

Deed sneered. “Drop him.”

He went into the acid, alive. Cowards did not get a hero’s death.

But Rele, his Quest, his Queen. He had failed her. He knelt before her shaking, smoothed his bloodied hands up her sandstone dress in worship. Trailed fingertips over her granite corset. Lingered at her marble chest. Held her travertine face still as perfect as the Goddess that sculpted it. He kissed her frozen mouth, her chin, her neck. She was smeared with oil and coolant.

“I did it all for you, my love...”

 

**"All these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters..."**

Metallica, _Nothing Else Matters_


	17. Electrocution

**alternate timeline**

**. . .**

“I don’t think you’re doing it right,” Shute said.

There was just something about people in _red_ that made them absolutely terrible. _Red flags_ weren’t called that because red was a nice color, right? It was a warning to stay back, keep your distance. Look at me, I’m a pain in the ass! Bakunetsumaru was definitely one of the worst— he was the one who blew up his dimensional transport device in the first place! Who the hell just _accidentally_  destroyed a six story building? In the middle of nowhere when he could have hit literally _anything else?_

Zapper Zaku was the kind of guy who would get arrested for drunk and disorderly while being completely sober.

Commander Sazabi was. Well. Himself. Super dead all the same, but whatever! That invasion was a   _shitshow_ …

Then there was Shute. He wore red, too.

Omar Bellwood, SDG prodigy and handsome teen genius, tried to swat the brat away. Urgh! He couldn’t stand little kids! Captain Gundam’s backup or not, he was bugging him worse than the samurai ever did. Something about being a Hero after the Horn of War debacle must have gotten to him. “I think I know more about quantum energy refractors than you, kid.”

“I’m telling you, that’s not it.” Shute chewed his bottom lip, looking… weirdly worried. “I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t know any better, but that cable—”

“Is going to get plugged into this console so I can test the responsiveness of the system to the Zakorello Gate. I need to make sure my computer works before trying to turn on any more dimensional generators!”

“The computer is attached to a generator three times the size of my workshed! The insulation won’t stop it from overloading! You’re going to blow yourself up!"

The shouts were swallowed by the empty landscape surrounding Site D. The only echo came from the direction of the Zakorello Gate, parked quietly at a distance. GMs milling about below looked up but otherwise stayed out of the way.

Bellwood hated this kind of talk at him. His parents used to do it all the time, before kicking him out. You can’t do this, you can’t do _that_ , “you’re going to go to law school like your father and grandfather and great grandfather and run the Bellwood Firm just like every other patriarch before you!” Well, that was a bunch of noise. Omar elbowed Shute.

“Move.”

Shute lingered.

“Move!”

“Uuuh… okay.” Shute moved back, went down the ladder to the next platform, and shifted around down there. “Whenever you’re ready, I guess!”

“Don’t stand there like you’re going to catch me!”

“I mean…. you’re gonna get knocked back either way.”

Bellwood grumbled, plugging in the—

All of the muscles in his arm spasmed, twisting down on themselves. It hurt like a _mother_. He tried to wrench himself backwards to shake the sensation away, but his knees locked. The sensation shot down into his legs, his back, up his neck and into the base of his skull. As if Captain Gundam himself tried to make it target practice for a Soul Drive powered punch. The muscle contractions felt like they were crushing him from the inside out, vibrating him to pieces. He tried to shout and his jaw locked into place. He bit down on his own tongue and tasted blood. Then there was the heat, the insane heat…

Shute was screaming.

Turns out they were both wrong.

The pain — the _real_ pain, not the kiddie preshow — hit him next. Bellwood opened his mouth to scream, the excess charge finally knocking him back. Shute wouldn’t catch him. He was a fireball when he struck the desert ground, heart long since exploded inside his chest when the GMs came to put him out.

 

**"I can't stop and you can't stop me..."**

Cascada, _Pyromania_


	18. Bones Sticking Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride.

**_Foreververse_ AU**

**. . .**

Robots didn’t have bones, but they _did_ have a support structure that held their frames together. And under a best case scenario, you never got to see the inside of yourself.

“You’re not even curious?” Renee thumped the front of her orange pickup with an open palm, then opened the hood. The inside _reeked_ from a recent oil leak, causing the fluid to bake on the surface of the engine. It bubbled like tar, puffing thin smoke. “How about now?”

Tango rocketed straight into the clouds and did _not_ come down for a solid hour.

It was a genuine paranoia for Axians to have. Perfectly understandable, if you knew the sordid history of the Dark Axis. Humans could look at x-rays and not be frightened… but living under constant threat of dissection from the Professor? Sure, Gerbera put them together and already _knew_ what was “under the hood,” but studying his creations after their deployment was practically a pastime of his. He liked to see how his units held up after prolonged activation, make notes so he could adjust future models. Tango himself was a generation eight series.

Resisting Gerbera's call to the operating table was impossible. You got orders and were compelled to follow through no matter how fatal the prospect. TA-N90 was terrified of getting that order, where he would let himself get strapped down and ripped apart—

Doga Orange woke up and couldn't remember where he was. One second he was… somewhere? A mission? The world blurred together in spinning shapes and uncomfortable _heat_ and nausea that sank to the pit of his fuel tank. It circulated cold, then came straight back up as coagulated mech-bile. He turned his head and puked through a smashed jaw. When had his emergency hatch been opened? He was _hot_ , practically cooking inside his armor. Bodies were all around him in a tight space. Shouting. Grabbing at him. Mecha _and_ humans.

“Electrical charge is dropping…! His systems are overheating, we need it colder!”

“Blanc Base is ready. Black Directive is a go. Operation: _Burning Orange_ is green. Keene is ready in surgery—”

A hand was on his shoulder. It stung, agonizing. The sensors under his armor pinged torture, but Captain Gundam’s voice was familiar bliss. “Tango. Can you hear me?”

He tried to say yes. It came out as static.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Did we win?” Tango had no idea why he asked that. He shook. His armor rattled unnaturally as he tried to look up. A strong sensation was bleeding up his backstrut, resonating from his midsection up to the rest of him.

Captain’s voice was strained. _“Don’t do that.”_

The smell hit him before visuals did. The same as Renee’s old truck, burnt oil and then some. Fire scarred rubber and melted copper fillings. He saw a sea of black wreckage charred from recent flames. Jagged pieces of a chassis cage erupted upward in his field of vision, blown out from an explosion. He tried to look past it to see where his body was. When his static-laced vision adjusted, he saw both his legs across the room. There was a mangled wing, what might have been an arm, and part of a Doga Bomber's facemask in a pile. A row of crates lined on the gunperry’s far wall, barely supported by a GM trying to keep them from spilling. Tubes and shrapnel overflowed within.

He lifted his working arm to try and test his mobility. His hand was gone. Part of the support structure pierced through, blown out of place by a detonation. He reached down to feel his chest, found only that gaping hole with those metal pieces of his interior skeleton pushing through.

 _“Oh,”_ he said, and finally started screaming.

 

**"I'm frightened by what I see, but somehow I know that there's much more to come..."**

Evanescence, _Whisper_


	19. Eye Trauma

**. . .**

High winds battered their vehicle-modes at this altitude. Their propellers struggled to maintain lift in the squall.

Thursday’s voice came through the comms. “I see them. Ten o’ clock, on the mountain face.”

_“Blanc Base has received visual confirmation. Good work. All units, please be advised: Gunchopper Four has the missing hikers in sight.”_

Friday groaned. “Geez, how did they  _get_  all the way up there? Don’t humans have any common sense?”

“Not the adrenaline junkies,” Saturday said, adjusting his flight path. “Let’s go get ‘em before the storm gets any worse.”

Neotopia stopped all expansion projects long before he and his siblings were created. While the planet was fully terraformed by weather module satellites, the decision was made  _not_  to develop the colony beyond what the human population demanded. The humans were supposedly the sole survivors of their species when they evacuated Earth, and Founders must have been concerned with them spreading too thin... so when there was no population explosion in the years following, plans for creating another city were put on hold altogether. The colony was limited to Neotopia, its surrounding districts, and a few scientific outposts across the globe dedicated to cloning new animal species and geological research. The later was for designated staff. Civilians were meant to be confined to the main colony for their own protection.

Unfortunately, this didn’t stop the backpackers: those humans who wanted to see the world and weren’t going to be stopped by invisible borders. To be honest, Saturday liked their drive and wished he could be more like them. The  _problems_ came when those people ended up in trouble and couldn’t save themselves. That was when search-and-rescue was called.

The Gundivers were always meant to be module-changing members of the SDG for situations just like this. Their new Gunchopper modes made it that much easier.

 _“Be very, very, very careful you three!”_  Kao Lyn’s voice was welcome relief.  _“Our satellites are sending us images of the storm. Lightning strikes are imminent. Please, grab them and get out!”_

There were three humans on the cliff waving them down. Two men and one woman. The smaller of the two males was cradling what Saturday read as a badly broken arm. Three sets of anchor points scaled up one of the sheer surface of the mountain above, but the set in the middle had snapped ropes that waved free in the wind. Saturday could see different points down the mountain path where he fell and rolled hardest. At the top of the mountain...

“What’s that?” Friday’s voice was a curious squawk.

Thursday chimed back cooly. “A radio relay. It’s used to strengthen long-range communications with the science stations across the planet. There’s one two hundred miles north of here.”

The three of them assumed robot-mode and began a careful descent.

“You guys with the Gundam Force!?” That was the woman. She sounded ready to cry. “Get us out of here, please!”

True to Kao Lyn’s warning, lightning struck the top of the mountain. The resounding thunderclap shook the air with a powerful sonic boom.

Saturday jumped backwards, veering back mid-air. “Whoa!  _Frag!”_

“It’s fine!” Friday took his place in the landing formation. He touched down first and stood over the humans as they ducked. “It’s okay, guys! We’re gonna take you three to the base of the mountain and somewhere safe. Thurs, help me with the—”

The radio relay at the top of the mountain had been hit, shearing the old pylon tower in two. Metal exploded. At first Saturday thought his audials were ringing, but as the metal pinging grew louder—

“Debris!” Thursday dropped his visor. “I can’t see where it’s—!”

Below them, Friday stood straight and looked up.

A five-foot-long, three-inch-thick support pipe speared him through the head. It went through his optic and came out the other side to stick into the ground. Gore – pieces of motherboard, circuitry, and processor fragments – burst from the exit wound. Friday’s hands flew up as his head snapped back. His pedes remained locked in place. Glass from his shattered optic sprayed with the rain.

Thursday couldn’t say anything, but Saturday started  _screaming_.

**"I escaped my final moment, but it's turning back at me..."**

Within Temptation, _Final Destination_


	20. Inner Beauty

**. . .**

He spoke to himself slowly, recording his own dialogue for later study. “Subject 1035 has a heavily worn serpentine belt, despite mission logs that clock less than three thousand hours... adjustments will have to be made to future models for better cooling. The current system _is_ tolerable, but extended invasions such as the one in Nucleus makes improvements necessary...”

The science wing of the Dark Axis Fortress was a fortified bunker of its own, separate from the rest of the monolith’s interior maze. It was the oldest developed space in the base, created shortly after he first arrived. The General needed his expertise to make their ambitions of annihilation reality, but _he_ needed someplace to work that wasn’t an interdimensional anomaly. Tucked away in the basement of the structure, the lab was fortified with energy shielding from the remains of his original ship’s transwarp drive. It prevented things from being... altered. The Fortress was a constantly shifting space even without the General’s direct influence, and soldiers were required to abide by a buddy system because of it. Important relics and prisoners could not be left alone. Things would sometimes otherwise _disappear_.

Zeong rarely gave them back, too.

The body below him whimpered. A dilated optic vibrated against its locked track, trapped in place with the magnetic seal from the gurney. The doga bomber's body was frozen in place.

“Hush,” Professor Gerbera said.

Apart from the outstanding issues with the serpentine belt and residual engine trouble, he was pleased. The results of the examination were overall _very_ good. The generation six doga bomber was a _superb_ model. Future batches would need only minor improvements from this version forward. The Professor pushed his hands deeper, shifting aside loose boards and drives so he could get further inside the mech's open cavity. The doga whined again.

“Good. Your obedience will be shortly rewarded...”

His original purpose to be a space-exploration Gundam was fine, but he had _truly_ come into his own with he was rescued. Floating in the void for so long with nothing left him with the unquenchable urge to create. First to craft his army, then to create destruction for the beings who left him to die in that vacuum alone. His plan would have to come to fruition in steps, however. He was still in the earliest stages of Zeong's master design, and his creations were always in need of fine tuning. Perfection could not be instantly achieved, but he was so _close_ now. The Professor reached deep again, producing the gyroscope module used for—

The soldier on the table whined again. That optic honed in on him flashed.

“Endure it.” Gerbera pulled the module out and set it aside. It would need a more in-depth analysis plugged into his computer. He reached in again to get a better look at the engine. “That is your final order.”

Unfortunately, it was clear that HU-NTR was not going to last much longer. The vitals display on the far wall was showing clear signs of imminent shutdown from exsanguination and overheating. A fuel line had been cut for Gerbera to more easily access the mech’s engine, and he was currently bleeding out onto his laboratory floor. He took the opportunity to remove the block and scrutinise the rest of the interior chassis. To think he had gone from charting stars and reading scanning boards do doing _this_. It almost made the darkness of space and the loneliness worth it. Tubes connected with hydraulic pistons in the interior frame, wires snaked across networks of circuit boards, batteries sat nestled in chasms of insulation and tubing—

The doga bomber started to seize. The pain-sensor odometer was off the charts as Gerbera ran his hands over the sensors within, testing their electric merit under his fingertips. On a whim, he started pulling more parts free. From their dark home to the table, he decided to more closely examine his own creation. He had made life from nothing. Zeong was a God of death, but he was a foil in Its shadow.

“You’re beautiful,” the Professor said.

The doga bomber fought against its paralyzed kinetics. It managed to get its jaw open in a silent scream before it succumbed.

**"We've been tortured, but we move forward. This disorder kills your day.."**

DAGames, _Build Our Machine_


	21. Ripped Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Fate of Commander Sazabi," its adjacent continuity, and Commander Kikeroga are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride.

**_Foreververse_  AU**

. . .

He was going to die.

The Cyberia Solar System invasion had gone from bad to worse, all in less than one hundred mission hours. The Gundams went full paramilitary without most of their human handlers, thwarting the installation of the _Prota Musai_ Horn of War at all of its potential installation sites. Zako Platinum was missing. Kikeroga’s squadron leader was dead. All remaining Dark Axis soldiers within the colony's main station were marooned between the different substations, low on fuel and ammo.

Now Doga Red had been shot down. He was surrounded.

His mission was meant to be simple data collection. The station’s mining level supposedly housed a powerful laser drill with the potential to be weaponized, and it was his job to confirm it was there. The tip had come from a Doga Black’s newest cohort, a traitor within the Cyberia high ranks.

“We can trust him,” Black said.

Red was shot down the second he crossed the threshold into the airlock space the Dark Axis was supposed to have control over. The zakos meant to be guarding it had killed execution style, lined up and shot. Laserfire grazed his wing and brought him down onto what was once a park by a manmade lakeside. He choked on grass and dirt, the pain from his busted wing blinding him until he found himself cornered.

“I’m on my way!” Doga Black’s voice was frantic over the Newtype Network. He hadn’t been expecting this. “Red, hang on! _”_

“HURRY!” Doga Red skittered backward up the hill onto the metal road in the living-district, whirling around when another Cyberia mech moved in behind him. Not a Gundam this time, but one of the less impressive units. They were battle-damaged but still very much mobile. Droves more mecha were closing in around him. “SHADOW—!”

A servo grabbed him by his broken wing. The Commando howled, unable to fend off the horde as he was swamped all at once. All of them grabbing at him.

“BLOODY!” Doga Black’s voice was a horrified howl over the Network. While they were still Four, the other two members of their quartet were back in the Dark Axis for emergency repairs. White and Green couldn’t come to his aid any faster than Black could.

 _That_ was when Doga Red realized he was going to die.

A Gundam hooked her servo into the gap in his mask, curling her digits into the under-armor and _pulling._ Another mech grabbed him by the ankle and yanked, knocking him off his pedes. The one who had him by the wing was _twisting,_ trying to…!

His wing was sheared off with the sheer force of his pulling. He had been forced to the ground, the others pouncing on him. One had their hands in the vents on his chest, diggng deep past the grates—

“SHADOW! _SHADOW!”_ Doga Red opened his jaws to vent air as his body rapidly overheated. The condensation previously beading on his armor was starting to evaporate as he starting cooking from stress. His pain receptors were beginning to fire off as one of the mechs twisted his leg, pulling and popping the internal supports. “THEY’RE TRYING TO TEAR ME TO PIECES!”

“I’M COMING!” Doga Black’s voice shook. “Bloody, _Bloody,_ try to fight them off, buy me a minute…!”

There was no way. One of the surviving humans from the bagu bagu release shoved her way past, holding one of the miner-tool plasma cutters. She found a seam in his arm that was being stretched out and pushed it into the joint. She pulled the trigger. At the same time his arm was severed, his leg was torn free. Hands pulling hard enough at his chassis yanked the protective plating free. Metal tore. A dozen more hands plunged into his chest cavity, pulling on anything they could get a hold of. Coolant tubes. Circuit boards. His own engine.

A hand hooked against his jaw and snapped it in half. The hands pulling on his head severed the support strut.

Doga Red howled as he watched his own body disintegrate in front of him.

**"Save yourself a penny for the ferryman..."**

Nightwish, _Planet Hell_


	22. Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andros Croan and Oliver Troy are owned by Chaos Phoniex.

**Multiple AUs**

**. . .**

Dr. Croan upped the wattage of his sensor-probe before dragging it along a collection of wires inside the Axian’s chassis. The magnetic tool gave an auditory warble, a songbird trapped beneath shiny chrome. “And now?”

Doga Brown threw his head back and _shrieked._

 _Courier of London_ was the only free medium-class island that remained in the Voxvale fleet, and even then it wasn’t a true city like the rest. In its prime it had been a research facility dedicated to development of new mecha for the royal family to use. Now it was one of the last havens away from the war. Thrown far off its normal flight course, they only had enough coal to keep them at top speed fleeing for another week. After that, using regular water vapor steam would slow them down considerably. Their retreat from their invaders was finite. The Dark Axis had taken all Voxvale’s largest islands and shot down the rest. Not even _The Thunder Child,_ the primary military island, had survived Commander Bawoo’s onslaught.

Their Queen was assassinated. Their Parliament had been turned to stone. Their mecha had been turned against them with the influence of control devices. The Nation of Voxvale had been obliterated.

His family was gone.

They had nothing left. Nothing, except, for one of the Doga Commandos that they had captured.

If the End was going to come, Andros Croan was going to take his sweet time with the tools and anger he had left.

The Axian was bound at the wrists and ankles with titanium shackles, pinning him to the workbench. Metal fans screamed as the robot tried to cool its mangled body down. It finally stopped screaming when Croan pulled his tool away to take notes, venting heavily.

Dr. Troy’s voice was small and wasn’t even a question. He knew what the answer was. “This isn’t an experiment, is it.”

“It is,” Croan clarified. There was no sense in distressing the younger scientist with testaments of pure violence. “I’m testing the sensitivity of the Axian’s internals. Surfaces that don’t have visible sensors still have the capacity to broadcast synthetic pain-signals. That means that they’re designed with receptors on a microscopic level. I’m determining the most reactive areas for when I conduct my full vivisection.”

“That’s still not an experiment.” Troy drew closer, but still maintained a safe distance. “What is your hypothesis? Your experiment model? What was the background research you conducted to find out that they react to pain on surfaces not visibly—?”

He dragged the tool across the engine block. Doga Brown arched, let out another long scream. The sound echoed on the high walls of the lab. Its cracked optic rolled back, apertures sputtering wildly as a short circuit ravaged its processor. Troy cringed away from it, using the tool slab as a shield between him and the gurney.

“Is it really necessary to keep him awake—?”

“Oliver.” Croan’s voice was warning. “It’s not a him. It’s a _machine.”_

“PLEASE STOP!” The robot arched up again, starting to emulate… crying. The sound was hyper-realistic, almost convincing to the point of being unnerving. Had it been taught to mimic human behavior before the invasion, or had it simply adapted the skill during? Dr. Troy was clearly disturbed. The robot continued begging. “VIOLENT! _HELP ME—!”_

“It’s not just making a declaration,” Troy said when Croan pulled the tool back. “A name?”

The robot vented in heavy, ragged breaths. It continued to plead quietly, desperately...

“Implying these things have the capacity to name themselves,” Croan said. “They’re invaders. They replicate the behavior of the creatures in the worlds they attack. I wouldn’t be surprised if we changed dialects and it _still_ learned to copy us.”

Croan pressed the tool to the base of the mech’s skullplate. The Axian saw this and tried to brace itself. It took to a seizure right away, locking its kinetics and vibrating in agony.

“This still isn’t an experiment...”

“You’re wrong,” Croan said. “The world is a different place now. The rules have changed, and I am going to learn one way or another how to hurt these creatures _most.”_

**"It was always you that I despised, I don't feel enough for you to cry..."**

Akira Yamaoka, _Room of Angel_

 


	23. Gouge It Out

**. . .**

_“Dude.”_ Navy’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Holy slag. Dude, what did you _do?”_

Violent wasn’t sure what he was looking at, either. Not at first. Not past all the bleeding and metal gore. Sparks flew and briefly illuminated the other mech’s face. Streaks of black and dark handprints showed where he had clawed at himself. There was a brief nanoclick where he hoped he was imagining the sight in front of him, but Doga Yellow’s pathetic whine finally compelled him forward. He shoved Doga Blue aside as he got on his knees, then pinged for Doga Grey.

_“Get down here, now.”_

_“I’m on my way. Keep him calm. I’m bringing medics.”_

“No.” Doga Yellow trembled. “No medics. I’m fine. I— I _fixed_ it. I’m _better_ now.”

There was a rule about the Dark Axis Fortress, that you always travelled in pairs. This was especially true the closer you got to the core. The General’s main chamber was a more dangerous place to be than any dimension they invaded. They were his army, but Zeong was no stranger to violence against his own servants. To be ignorant of that meant you deserved to be hurt. Soldiers tended to go missing if they wandered the halls alone, often times were never found again. If they were, it was in various stages decay. Not like organic decay, either. Sometimes they found whole bodies, undamaged but still deceased. Other times they found only... pieces. An arm or a leg. Those who were “lucky” enough to be found alive were mutilated, mentally and physically. Raving about a shadow of themselves. Unfathomable loneliness, darkness.

Doga Yellow tried to swat him away. No Name was crouched against the wall, wings spread to try and shield himself from intruders. Violent and Navy had found him entirely on accident on their way to the roosting hanger.

“Let me see.” Doga Purple said, pulling on his shoulder. “Yellow—”

The injured Commando turned his head. In his servos was a mechanic’s drill, still soaked in oil and hydraulic fluid. The inside of his mask was a shredded mess of scraped metal and wires. A coolant tube was still spilling down the front of his helmet and onto his chest, staining evergreen to dark brown. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “It’s okay. I _fixed_ it. I can just use thermal now, it’s fine.”

“Hold still.” Doga Purple knocked the drill out of his hands and knocked it back. Doga Blue finished the job by kicking it away back into the darkness. “Let me see, Yellow...”

“Dude, his optic…!” Doga Blue was losing it. “What would you do that, man!?”

True to word, Doga Yellow’s optic was gone. The lens had been gouged out with the drill, exposing the still sparking mount where the wires once connected it. Underfoot, pink tinted glass crunched. Doga Purple felt his internals seize. Too many things were making sense, now. Doga Yellow’s difficulty during their last mission where he was required to spot a certain colored flare for a signal to attack. His reluctance to participate in check-ups with the Professor regarding that difficulty. His off-kilter color scheme...

“Your colored-vision was defective,” Doga Purple said, quietly. He pulled Doga Yellow against him. The mech immediately clung tight, shaking from stress. “Something was wrong with it from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you tell us, dude?” Doga Blue finally got on his knees next to them, revving comfortingly. Despite their repertoire as invasion heralds, the most fearsome of the Dark Axis soldiers below Commanders themselves, they were still Four. Comradery ran deep with them. For Yellow to have hidden his condition… “We could’ve helped you…”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Doga Yellow laughed softly. “Now I can be broken in a _normal_ way…”

He cried. They sat with him like that for a long time, even after Doga Grey finally joined them.

**"My eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light..."**

Simon & Garfunkel, _The Sound of Silence_


	24. Amputation

**. . .**

Sometimes, he could still feel his old arm getting ripped off.

The phantom sensations would never go away, either: that was according to the consultation he received from Professor Shamblo. Gerbera’s science SIC studied his processor extensively after he received his new arm, when the symptoms started. He determined that it was a coding error in his sensation-module. That was the part of his processor that analyzed pain-signals from various nodes deep in his body. When the Clarke bit down onto his arm and severed it at the elbow, the shock to his systems caused his idiot brain to lock in on the sensation forever. Even after he got his replacement. Even with dozens of patches to try and fix the error.

Phantom limb sensations were uncommon in Axians already, but Grappler Gouf got a double-whammy. It wasn’t just the Clarke bite he had to relive. After all, he lost his _whole_ arm. Not just up to the elbow.

Destroyer Dom had dragged him into the Komusai as quickly as he could, silently waving for the crew to go full speed ahead. The mission into the abandoned Axian city of Necropolis was off, aborted with prejudice. They had been down there looking for resources to scavenge for Commander Z’Gok when the wildlife attacked. Clarkes were serious business— the kind of irradiated trans-organic monsters that could slaughter ten zakos and leave Grappler Gouf badly hurt in one sitting.

He unslung Grappler from over his shoulder and onto the floor, kneeling over him. The ship heaved as the panicked zakos took off at full speed. “Arm. Now.”

Grappler could barely focus. The cobalt mech swung his optic down to look at his mangled arm. The Clarke’s saliva, acidic, was progressively corroding up the side of his remaining limb in zigzagged ribbons.

“Won’t get to the _Reaver Musai_ in time before corrosion eats past shoulder,” Destroyer said. “Rest has to come off. Now.”

Destroyer Dom was a bastard. Not because he was inherently a bad guy— far from it. He was one of the _better_ squadron leads in the Dark Axis, an absolute powerhouse and the kind of munitions expert that put every other colonel to shame. As much as Grappler was still upset with him over his fried motherboard in Radhaven (what a nightmare _that_ had been), Destroyer was calculating when he wasn’t in berserker-mode. He knew his slag, and he knew that the situation was bad.

“No.” Grappler reached out to grab his arm, stopping when the other mech snatched his hand and stopped him. Good move, too. If he had touched it, the acid would have transferred to his other servo… “We have to try and save it. _Please.”_

Soldiers lost limbs on the battlefield all the time. They could be replaced, but the original components - the bits you came online with - were still _part_ of you. Once they were gone, you felt it. Then there were the truly unlucky ones, the Dark Axis soldiers who came off assembly feeling like their body still wasn’t entirely theirs. The dysphoria lingered for Grappler even after he went through the Academy for his squadron leader promotion. It had taken a decade for him to modify his frame to make it feel like _his_. Now here he was, being asked to just—

Acid ate further up his arm. He howled in agony as the shock stopped blocking the signal.

“Grappler!” Destroyer’s optic flared. He had already taken out his chainsaw. _“Now!”_

He whimpered when he got control of his vocalizer again. “Can we really not save the rest of it?”

“I’m sorry.”

It felt like an eternity. When Grappler finally felt himself nodding, it was like the world was caving in around him. He wanted to purge. The komusai cabin felt too small. He turned his head away. “Do what you need to.”

Destroyer Dom apologized again, and brought the chainsaw blade down where Grappler’s arm met his shoulder pauldron.

He has his first prosthetic - with claws - less than a week later.

**"Time has come, got to make up my mind..."**

Cryoshell, _Creeping In My Soul_


	25. Dental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remmi, Leto, Arlos, Hermes, Perseus, and Adonis are owned by Zerogal. The RP "Ice Queens," its sequels/prequels, and its universe are owned between both of us.

_**Queensverse** _ **AU**

**. . .**

Remmi woke up the sound of his nephews screaming.

The night had gone from bad to worse. Lacroa’s furthermost villages _were_ prone to bandit raids, but this wasn’t the average homestead. Remmi and his sister Leto were the son and daughter of the famous vampire hunter Arlos. A Gundam monster-hunter who once served the De’Lacroa family during the Blood Boom crisis, this was the _exact_ cottage most rogues were smart to avoid. When they didn’t, they had Arlos to deal with. They also had Remmi himself, a crossbow ace. Leto also had a bondmate Zeus, an absolute _titan_ of a mech. Built like a brick castle, he could snap anyone in half who crossed paths with him.

Remmi, Leto, and their mother Murka adored him. Arlos on the other hand...

“The fool is too soft,” the aging Gundam warned once, when they went out hunting. Not monster— game, of course. Arlos was retired. When they brought the elk back to the hut to skin and quarter, his sire’s voice was grave. “He’ll sooner help outsiders than question their motives. The most vicious bandits don’t attack first. They wait. Someday, that ogre will meet someone who will use that against him. This clan will _suffer_.”

Remmi tried not to let the harsh words get to him. Zeus was the exact patriarch their family needed to surpass Arlos. His sire was cruel where it was unnecessary, often acting mean for the sake of it. He lost track of the times he had made his own grandchildren cry. Hermes, Perseus, Adonis, _Herra_...

Oh yes, poor little Herra. Small and sickly, always making flower crowns for her sire—

Another volley of screams wrenched him from his bedroom. Remmi regretted not grabbing his crossbow from the wall mount in the hallway when he had the chance. It was too late to double back now, anyways. He was too close to the room, and the native desire to _save the sparklings_ overrode everything else. He had no offspring of his own, so the thought of anything happening to them...

Leto shoved out of her own room. “Remmi!?”

“Stay there!” Remmi kicked the door to the children’s bedroom. He staggered in and took one look— and blanched.

The evening had started off badly. They were low on firewood and he was in a... mood. Watching Zeus play with his sparklings by the fire rather than stoke it like a proper mech was infuriating to him. When Zeus finally left to get the wood, he never returned. Remmi and Arlos had gone one to look for him by the barn but only found their sleeping ox and untouched wagon. The night got worse when Zeus continued to not come back. Leto was worried sick. The sparklings cried. Murka produced her Goddess talesmen as a token to ward evil spirits— something she only did when she felt something was very wrong. Arlos flew into a rage and chastised all of them for putting their faith into a fool like Zeus in the first place.

“A _vampire_ probably got him,” he said, sarcastic.

Now Remmi was seriously regretting not getting the crossbow, or even having the place of mind to just _grab_ the sparklings and run. Zeus had come in through the window, twinkling glass scattered across the bedroom floor in the moonglow. The mech’s once brilliant blue optics shone crimson like murderous beacons. He had studied under his father for long enough to recognize a freshly turned vampire, but never imagined seeing one in person. And even worse, he could only see three of Leto’s four children. Adonis, Hermes, and Perseus were crammed into the far corner to get as far away from the danger as possible, but Herra — little Herra — was nowhere to be seen...!

Zeus snapped his head towards him. He moved impossibly fast, too fast to dodge.

“Oh,” Remmi said, right before the newly turned Zeus grabbed him.

He couldn’t breathe when the huge mech flashed his new fangs. Pearly white teeth, reflecting moonlight like the broken window panes.

Remmi had his throat torn out. He died watching his own energon erupt from his body, watching Zeus inhale and draw it greedily into his own.

 

**"Stay superstitious, abandon faith. Nothing is sacred and none feel safe..."**

Love Automatic, _Nightmare_


	26. Dinner Is Served

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride. An alternate take on a scene from "Life's School of War."

_**Foreververse** _ **AU (alternate timeline)**

**. . .**

Viola Perez reentered the house through the sliding doors in the living room. When she returned to the dining room, she held up the electromagnetic rifle with shaking hands. Her eyes met a blazing pink optic and she pulled the trigger.

When she first arrived at the Ray residence, her heart had been pumping in her ears. Almost too loud for her to think, pushing her veins full of red-hot blood as well as adrenaline. She felt like she was walking into a lion’s den. Talking with Keiko over cookies fresh from the oven made things easier for a few minutes, but seeing Commander Sazabi for the first time – in person, not on a television screen – was horrifying. He stalked past them beyond the threshold of the living room like a prowling animal. Viola’s reason for being there in the first place was even more clear to her watching that monstrosity waltz past with only a glass door to protect them...

“So why did you really come here, Viola?” Keiko asked.

Viola’s voice was a choked whisper. “I have an electromagnetic rifle in my trunk.”

Watching Commander Sazabi’s brainmapping develop on its own had terrifying implications. He was learning how to manipulate his own programming, use his weapons systems for modified functionality. Viola had been assigned to his case to watch his processor for study, but instead discovered a trove of disturbing developments. Targeting systems were now being used to recognize facial features, his battle computer was acting as an extra harddrive… he was _jailbreaking_ himself. How long before he backdoored a way around his security bolt? Called the Dark Axis for rescue?

She showed Keiko the gun in the boot of her car. Keiko told her to leave and never come back.

“But first— do you want to have dinner?” She was trying to be polite, the better person, but the rage in her eyes _..._

It was when Sazabi joined them at the dinner table that night that Viola regained her courage. She excused herself as Keiko started to announce that the ham was almost ready.

The gun recoiled with enough force to send her flying into the wall. She hadn’t accounted for that— it was an electric gun, but the charge of it was carried through a bolt the size of a railway spike. It wasn’t necessarily heavy, but the kickback was _powerful_. Her ears were still ringing when she got her bearings back to see the fallout of her actions. Commander Sazabi was no longer standing by the table. The bulk of him was thrown to the floor straight onto his back. The bolt had struck him in the throat dead-center. Cooling fluid, dark oil spatter, and bright red paint covered the walls and floor, filled the home with the smell of a garage on a hot day. The massive Axian seized hideously from the leftover current surging through his body. His shattered optic rolled back as—

Keiko’s husband Mark grabbed her arm. It _snapped_ under the incredible pressure of his hand, pushed bone through skin. She couldn’t even scream when he reached out and snatched the rifle away by the barrel, twisting it upwards as though it were made of paper. His fingers left divots in the metal. After tossing it aside, he reached into his pocket and produced a cell phone. “ _Send me a bus!_ Commander Sazabi has been shot, this is going to be a code black directive, Chief Haro’s emergency code one-nine-seven—”

Keiko was _screaming_. The woman burst from the kitchen and immediately ran for the dead Axian. Twitching like that didn’t come from processor damage: the shock of the bolt’s charge had fried his brain on impact, that close to his head. His thrashing was from his circuits misfiring post-mortem, nothing more. His hell maw yawned wide, locked in a silent scream.

Keiko stopped screaming all at once. Her voice quaked. Her hands were covered in that red paint. “Mark? Where is _Nana?”_

In the chaos, Viola realized something important.

Just as she first saw him walking around outside, she had forgotten Sazabi was still holding the baby.

 

**"Fear of the dark, it's growing inside of me, that one day will come to life..."**

Within Temptation, _It's The Fear_


	27. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector is owned by Psye. The RP "Ice Queens," its sequels/prequels, and its universe are owned between Zerogal and I.

_**Queensverse** _ **AU**

**. . .**

There were no words to be said when the Knight Gundam passed him on horseback, flames from the west wing flicking behind him. Lashes from the underworld, spurring him forward.

Hector Lafette had known Clout since he was nothing more than a spirit egg, cast out from the tree’s fountain. It was a sunny afternoon. Warm with a faint breeze, the air smelling of lilacs. Like all newborn Gundams destined for knighthood, Clout had hatched close to the fountain itself. A squeaking and stumbling sparkling, content to cuddle the first person who picked him up. Hector treasured that moment. Every human squire of the Lacroa Order was tasked to raise infant Knight Gundams until they were old enough to carry their first sword, but Clout had been something _special_. Quiet and affectionate, always begging the maids for sweets and snuggling up to anyone who would let him.

“Hardly knight material,” Lord Gavin Odeson once said to him under his breath, although Gavin hadn’t been a lord yet. He was still a squire back then, like Hector.

Gundams aged faster than humans in the sense that they matured quickly. By the end of ten years, Clout had grown into his knight-bound mould with kind regards. He was brave and valiant: possibly too much for his own good. He learned how to use a sword well, was an ace on horseback. By the end of twenty years, he and Hector were both knights of their respective ranks, best friends until the end of—

A woman, engulfed in flames, burst through the highest wall of the inferno from the west wing. Her screams were piercing. She was of the upper caste, evident by the tassels of her ornate gown. Expensive silk was lost to the will of embers.

The theme of the evening was hellfire. The vampire seductresses who had bitten and turned Clout while he worked late in the stable one night were nothing more than charred bodies at the bottom of the lake now. Their execution pyre was still burning behind the main courtyard of the castle, separate from the inferno that now consumed the west wing as high as the king and queen’s main sleeping quarters. Clout and his vampress captors had been missing for _weeks_ , only recently found in an abandoned fort. Hagen the Hammer Knight had been killed in the siege. Hector begged for them to spare Clout, even pleading with Clout himself to forsake his vampire kidnappers to appease—

“I don’t need saving,” Clout hissed at him through the bars of his cell. He stood in front of Mara and Dibella, shielding them from his old friend. _Protecting_ them. “Why couldn’t you have left us _be?”_

Clout had survived the execution only because his pole snapped from the heat of the flames closest to the base. He hadn’t had time for the flames to take him, so he was put back in the dungeon to await—

The escaped vampire knight was pushing past the barricades faster than the bravest knights could try to establish them. The king’s stolen horse was the largest and fastest in the fleet, meaning he could smash through any resistance that met him. At the mouth of the west wing’s burning entrance, more bodies tried to pour free in various stages of death. The odor of cooked flesh was pungent. Clout _had_ vowed revenge for the deaths of his lovers, and he had delivered without hesitation. A knight no more, a murderer forever.

“Where is the king!?”

“Murdered! Slaughtered in his bedchambers with the Queen, set alight!”

“Lord Gavin is dead! Buried under the rubble!”

“Fetch the prince, ensure that Luther De’Lacroa is saved!”

“Rock, Moss, and Dova are riding hither! Mana help us…!”

Hector fell to his knees, watching as Clout rode away into the night. Revenge had been swift, and he had been left in the dust to wonder what could have been…

Lord Hector lived to a ripe old age, watching King Luther grow and continue the legacy of the De’Lacroa monarch. He passed away shortly after the birth of the Princess, and never saw Clout again. Not even to tell him _sorry._

 

**"What is done will return again, will I ever be free...?"**

Sarah Brightman, _Fleurs Du Mal_


	28. Hunted Down

**. . .**

“An unholy coupling!”

“Adulteress! _Whore!”_

She cowered against the far wall between a display of simple white carnations, her knees drawn to her chest as far as they would. Fleur Bennet wept into her hands. They were _ruined_.

“Surrender yourselves! The Goddess _will_ be appeased!”

“Women were made for  _men!_ A mech is _not—!”_

Dova the Dragon Knight returned with another barrel as he braced it against the door. The barricade wavered as the strongest men outside threw themselves against it. The royal knight staggered backwards, armor was wicked with condensation, body trembling.

“I’ve gotten us killed,” Fleur whimpered. She cried harder into her hands. “First your horse, now us and…”

The evening had gone sour when anxieties over a devastating wheat plight spilled over. An entire crop that the city relied on had mysteriously turned to stone. The village surrounding Lacroa castle was determined to lay blame on _someone_. It was bad timing for them to be accidentally seen together by the lakeside. Fleur had no idea she was being stalked by those two farmers, and Dova hadn’t seen them until it was too late. They had already embraced. While one man rushed back to the village, the second attacked. Dova had no choice but to dispatch them. It was too late to deal with the other before they were too far gone. No Mana cast could clean spilled blood or sink a body.

They waited until evening to try and flee the basin. The mobs were already waiting for them when they tried. Too many magicians fuelled by the pack mentality had cast spells to prevent them from hiding. Too many furious peasants with crossbows made escape by the sky impossible. Arvak – _beautiful_ Arvak – was tripped with rope while they tried to break past a trap that had been laid for them. They had to run on foot while the mechanical steed was swarmed. Ripped to pieces. She had loved that horse as much as her lover.

Her father’s flower shop was the closest sanctuary. Now it was surrounded. The smell of smoke made her realize they had set it on fire.

Dova knelt in front of her to hold her face. “Look at me, Fleur.”

“We’re going to _die!”_

“I’ve already cast a flare. The other knights will be here soon. They— they will _understand_. Rock is no Moss, but Nataku and Battol will aid us. The crowd will be dispelled, and we can go _anywhere_. Just you and I, and the baby.”

The fall from the horse had been so violent, though. She wrapped her hands around her stomach, not swollen enough to incapacitate but enough to make her condition obvious. Maybe if she had gotten married to that boy like Dova said, just to be less conspicuous, she could have avoided those men following her. A pregnant woman without husband drew too much attention, but she had wanted a baby so _badly_ and Dova couldn’t _…_

The Gundam held her face and kissed her gently. His arms shook— he was as terrified as she was. “I love you. _Both of you.”_

At that moment, she saw movement. Over the sound of the mob, she never heard glass break. A villager with a sword shoved his way into the store’s gallery. Dova stood, but not in time to snatch his scythe off the counter where he left it. The sword went through a gap in his armor and out the other side in his midsection. Torches were lobbed through the windows. The barricade finally came down.

 _“No!”_ Fleur struggled to stand.

On the table, the scythe vanished. Wounded, Dova doubled over in pain, laying face down on the ground as the villagers excitedly dragged him out the door. The roar of the crowd was deafening, they were going to rip him to pieces—

The wall of fire was spreading faster. Before anyone could grab her, she was caged in by a wall of flames. As Fleur retreated as far back as she could go, skin burning, she slunk to the floor one last time.

She hadn’t had time to reply _“I love you, too.”_

 

**"I don't feel right when you're gone away..."**

Seether (feat. Amy Lee), _Broken_


	29. Sewn Together

**. . .**

Assimilation was a nightmare.

The exact origin of the weapon had been lost to time, but rumor placed it at the beginning of Lacroa’s history. Those were the early days when the Solardiorama monarch was less pronounced, and the basin of the Spirit Tree had no castle built on its branches. However, an ancient war _had_ been prominent. Abandoned forts dating back to that century could still be found around Lacroa's wilds, like in Whiterun or Darkmount. A Knight Gundam who served an early royal family was determined to best save his unnamed kingdom. He vowed to end the war that plagued his lands forever. 

To do so, so he commissioned an order of mages to place a powerful binding spell on his sword.

The spell would be used to bind a captured Summon Beast to his blade. That way, the knight would always have his companion to call upon in battle. The secondary effect of the spell would be to absorb the powers of all those slain by the sword's swing. With it, the Knight Gundam hoped to bring peace to his kingdom. By absorbing the strengths of his enemies, he could keep those at bay who would deem themselves conquerors. It was the ultimate tool for righteousness.

The mages who enchanted the sword had far less benevolent intentions. They made the charm into a curse. The Knight Gundam, Lord Epyon, and his magnificent spirit of the Wyvern found themselves swallowed whole by it.

The Sword of Epyon had a sordid history, after that. Despite having a status that was of legend, it was rumored to have been used in more recent periods as well. The War of the Flowers held fable that it was used by a human general. Once undefeated, he was killed after less than three battles with the sword— _supposedly_ , of course. No proof that the weapon was used existed beyond unreliable eyewitnesses. While the sword slaughtered all those who touched it, the general’s tremendous strength was mysteriously sapped with each fight. Then the Sword of Epyon disappeared once more. It resurfaced during a civil war in Ark. It was used by an Arkian warlord who was finally defeated by the might of another Knight Gundam. Even _more_ recently, it was rumored to be housed in a vault by the Queen of Aurelia, a kingdom that neighbored Lacroa between ocean and desert... but no such relic matching the sword’s description was ever found. After the fall of Aurelia, the vaults were found to be empty.

Talgeese had no idea how Deathscythe got his hands on the sword... or rather, how he _didn’t_. He acquired the blade without falling victim to its mindless pull, the bastard. The rumor that those who touched it were instantly cursed were true.

You stopped being yourself when you were absorbed. First there was the pain of the wound the sword struck, like being branded by burning ice. Then you were dropped into a pit of frigid and sticky darkness, unable to tear yourself free from the thousands of others bound to their crowded hell. The well of bodies absorbed hundreds of years earlier had no idea what they were beyond the Whole. You were thrown into the middle of it, the center of that unholy pain, melting together with the rest. Sewn into place. Forced to exert your power in a way that made you wish you simply just died. It was the agony that made you forget who you were after so long, or not very long at all. Very few souls trapped in that hole remembered what they used to be before their eternal prison sentence.

The Wyvern, the first one trapped in the sword, begged for its suffering to end. The Storm Twins, Mercurius and Vayeate, wept in unrestrained fear. The Griffin screamed in its agony. Talgeese mourned for himself, for his allies he had unwittingly doomed, for what he could have been. At the center of it all was the first one: the original Knight Gundam himself.

Talgeese promised him, that if he ever got out, he would avenge them all.

Meanwhile, in the Whole that had become, Epyon prayed for death.

 

**"Thoughts that forced discordance away, once more an era is fading..."**

Scar Symmetry,  _Morphogenesis_


	30. Till Death Do Us Part

**alternate timeline**

**. . .**

Keiko Abe always had a tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend's mother, even at the best of times. In the early days when she was still in school, Pamela would often chastise her about her career path. Being a schoolteacher was a noble cause, yes, but wouldn’t she have felt better at home raising her _own_ children? Why focus on working out of the home when you can stay at the house, clean and cook and tend to her own babies while her _husband—_

“I want to help all children, not just my own,” Keiko said politely. “I’m not selfish.”

When she told her boyfriend about the conversation and the _look_ that Pam had given her, Markus Ray laughed and shot soda right out his nose.

“I could marry you,” he said jokingly. Two years later, he did.

Their family grew from there. Keiko was a schoolteacher full-time, so Mark was available to move his studio to the house after Shute was born. When he turned nine, they added Nana to the rooster. The life they had built was coming together. Time added to its beauty.

“We could make it a fiver,” Mark said to her, only half-jokingly. “Then when we find out the sex, we tell my mother the _opposite_ and see her reaction when all her gendered-garbage turns out to be useless! Then we use it anyways to piss her off even more! It’ll be hilarious honey, _trust me.”_

“Coming from the boy who used to drop bowling balls out the window and ride the mattress down the stairs, _this_ is why your mother is so neurotic.” Keiko put down her papers, grabbed a pencil, and lobbed it at her husband. He didn't even dodge. “At least when Shute gets into trouble, _he’s_ doing it for his inventions.”

On the day before the Dark Axis invasion, they went to bed as usual. Mark even mentioned to her that he would be gone in the morning to go to his new studio in the city. He was recording a new jingle for a pizza chain that had opened up downtown. Keiko told him that she would be at Neotopia Tower to watch Shute and his friends – Captain, Zero, and Bakunetsumaru – help shoot that new student film called _The Blazing Samurai_ _._

“Take plenty of pictures behind the scenes for me,” he said. Then, as an afterthought, “I love you.”

“Go to bed, dummy.”

When the world started to come to an end, Keiko felt adrenaline surge through her. The sight of her only son confronting Commander Sazabi at the top of that awful spire set her on the warpath. She marched straight up from the level they had barricaded themselves in and took the chance to berate that awful mech herself, to—

“You worthless bugs! Don’t let this patriotism go to your head!” Sazabi pointed at them from across the threshold of empty sky, straight at _her. “Destroy them!”_

She barely remembered what happened next. There was the sound of gunfire and a burst of air. Nanako screamed in her arms— god, where was _Mark?_ His studio was in Neotopia Tower, but she and the mayor couldn’t find him in his office when they looked. Had he escaped in time? Was he looking for her? If he had been there, she could have handed the baby off to him so they could both stay safe...

She was shoved to the ground but rolled in time to protect Nana. The mayor and Sayla had been whisked up and out of harm’s way by Zero and another Gundam she didn’t recognize. Then there, lying on the ground where she had been seconds earlier, was a man in a blue military suit. Bullet holes riddled his uniform and bloomed red. He never stood back up. A gunperry landed and officers ushered her away.

“I wish Mark was here,” she said, curled into herself, watching Shute from afar as they circled the Horn of War.

The next day, when the world had been saved, those uniformed officers were back at her doorstep with Mark’s belongings. Then the world ended all over again.

 

**"One by one we will fall down..."**

Nightwish, _10th Man Down_


	31. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Fate of Commander Sazabi" and its adjacent continuity are owned by BetterBeMeta. The AU is entirely hers and I'm just along for the ride.
> 
> Thank you for reading my contribution for Goretober 2018! All of you are lovely.

_**Foreververse** _ **AU**

**. . .**

Directly over the city was a no-fly zone for mecha right now. Too many frightened people were still on the ground, would start screaming if they so much as heard turbines. The collective howl of ambulance sirens and intermittent air-raid alarms choked the autumn night. Guneagle had to be driven into the city an armored truck after he landed on Stargazer Hill because of that. They took the incomplete metro tunnel to bypass traffic. The GA-01 didn’t get to see Commander Sazabi get airlifted back to Blanc Base.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

A human SDG officer he recognized, George Karlsson, made a sound. “Bad.”

Uptown Neotopia was a ruin. The once pristine streets were a wreck of upturned asphalt, overturned cars, and broken dreams. Guneagle and Friday — Gundiver Five — once came this way to spend a night exploring the area. Their “civilian” modes were albeit a little less convincing than Captain’s, but they were able to have a good time regardless. They hit up a few bars, went to a club, stopped by a few monuments and historic sites...

“Clean-up is still on their way. Spread out and search for any survivors we may have missed,” George said.

Beyond a handful of other first responders, they were the first from the SDG sweep team to arrive. Buildings were cleaved straight through where the doga bombers had impacted, and droves of still-smoking craters littered the debris-filled streets. He could recognize the larger pieces of Axian husks from a distance. There were loose papers, dust, broken glass—

Bodies.

Too many bodies.

This had been the worst impact zone. Casualties were guaranteed, but never in his brief year of training – of being alive – did he imagine he would ever see carnage like this. He was meant to be a defender like Captain. He wasn’t meant for war. He wasn’t meant for…

Halfway down the street, he stepped on something that jingled. He reached down to pick it up. A singed teddy bear. Squeezing the center elicited a cheerful rendition of the Happy Birthday tune. The same one he had gotten when he first came online and met Kao Lyn and Captain. Not far away from that were the first corpses. The crumbled frame of a little girl was curled on the pavement. No older than ten, her legs had been blown off at the knees where a doga bomber’s impact sent a shockwave that sheared her parents to pieces. _Their_ bodies were less recognizable, charred chunks of flesh that were still smoking. Blood was tacky and baked underfoot. The little girl had a gored shirt that read _Birthday Princess._

Guneagle immediately called Kao Lyn.

 _“I’m watching the surgery. He won't make it.”_ he said. He paused, seeming to realize that the caller ID wasn’t who he expected. _“Guneagle?”_

The GA—01 sucked in air through his vents. He shook, squeezing the teddy bear so hard that the mechanic speaker inside snapped under his grip. He whimpered.

_“Guneagle? Are you—?”_

“Can I come _home?”_ He hadn’t realized he started crying. He was looking straight ahead now, towards Neotopia Tower. His audials were ringing. His vision tunnelled and branched off at the same time. The world was dark, but he could pinpoint every _corpse_ laying in the street all the way past the uptown outlets and onto Universal Avenue. A GM with their chassis blasted open, a teenage boy draped over the bus stop bench with a snapped neck, a service dog with their vest and body shredded by shrapnel, a crushed baby stroller with a swaddled bundle of red tossed beside it—

Kao Lyn’s voice broke through the static. _“Guneagle!? Guneagle, answer me! Can you hear me!?”_

He was on his knees. His voice box was laced with static. He didn’t remember screaming. “Yeah, Pops?”

 _“I’m sending someone to get you. Don’t look at anything else.”_ Kao Lyn’s voice was softer this time. _“You can come home.”_

Guneagle buried his face in his hands, still holding that teddy bear.

 

**"When God is gone and the Devil takes hold, who will have mercy on your soul...?"**

Jen Titus, _O' Death_

**F I N**


End file.
